He had Strat's smile. The one that said, This is the best day and you are the best person to spend it with.

The second falling came.

She gripped the tiny restaurant table and did not fall completely. It was more the dizziness that hits anyone from time to time: a skidding of the mind, the tires of your thoughts on black ice. She could not quite see the boy's face, and could not quite remember Strat's, and then it was over, and Lockwood Stratton was studying the bill.

“What's my share?” said Annie thickly.

“Please let me pay. I'm getting a kick out of this. I love that we're both Lockwoods.”

RENIFER: IN THE TWENTIETH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF KHUFU, LORD OF THE TWO LANDS

The great torches along the polished causeway had been lit. The avenue past the temples and up to the Pyramid gleamed in the night. The wind off the desert grew cold.

The tomb robbers held no grudge against Hetepheres. They hoped she would have eternal life. They assumed, however, that she would be fine without her jewels.

They had been robbing her tomb for several nights now, having chipped away the plaster that hid the entrance. Her little mortuary chapel had potted palms and ferns, watered by temple servants. Now there were many more, watered by tomb robbers, which after their night's work, the thieves slid over the stones to hide the forced entry.

They had taken from the tomb most of the smaller items and were now considering how to take the larger ones.

Using levers, they tipped up the lid of the great stone sarcophagus. In it would rest the finest jewels, lying next to and on top of the mummy. The queen's ka would be flying around, frantic and angry, but they had been robbing tombs for generations. No man yet had been hurt by a ka—only by priests who thought they were above bribery.

It took some time to maneuver the two-ton stone lid out of the way. They balanced it crosswise on the rim of the sarcophagus and hoisted out the light wooden coffin. They removed an immense gold pectoral of vulture's wings, solid with jasper and lapis lazuli. Somebody's wife or daughter would look magnificent in the morning.

Of course, she would have to look magnificent in private, until the gold was melted down and molded into something that could not be recognized. But melting down stolen gold was a daily activity, like baking bread or netting fish.

If Pharaoh caught them, He would have them impaled. But the robbers merely found this exciting. They did not expect Pharaoh to be told. Sufficient bribes had been paid for many nights of privacy. The guardians of the City of the Dead were always happy to receive gold. The priests who served the dead queen her daily meals were also satisfied by gold.

That was the thing about gold. Everybody wanted it and everybody was satisfied by it.